As Ireland’s $1,500-a-month basic income pilot program for creatives nears its end in February, officials have to answer a simple question: Is it worth it?
With four months to go, they say the answer is yes.
Earlier this month, Ireland’s government announced its 2026 budget, which includes “a successor to the pilot Basic Income Scheme for the Arts to begin next year” among its expenditures.
Ireland is just one of many places experimenting with guaranteed basic income programs, which provide recurring, unrestricted payments to people in a certain demographic. These programs differ from a universal basic income, which would provide payments for an entire population.
I wonder what the criteria are to define what an artist is, or what requirements are needed to qualify for such assistance.
For those, like me, that are curious how they decide who’s eligible…
Also:
Selection process
The department expects a high volume of applications and it will not be possible to provide funding to all eligible applicants.
Selection will be a non-competitive process. Once an applicant satisfies the eligibility criteria they will be included in an anonymised random sampling process to determine the pilot participants from the pool of eligible applicants for the BIA Pilot.
Funding for the scheme will allow for approximately 2,000 eligible applicants to participate in the pilot scheme.
This should be the default for anybody in the world. From there on work if you want more. We are social, economical and technologically capable of doing it. Is the 1% the ones preventing it from happening.
In Switzerland, 77% of the population voted against. Granted, the 1% may have influenced the voters by spending money on campaigns, or even by creating a narrative over decades. And maybe that proposal was too ambitious. But in the end, it was not just the 1% who voted against but 77%. There is still a lot of skepticism against UBI, despite all the positive evidence.
0.00004% (billionaires over world population), but yeah. Somebody please tell me why we’re using technology to “make money” instead of progressing the human living standard
I’ve been struggling for years, living in poverty since I was 18 despite having just about the best education you can have in my field. I’ve made desperate decisions and risky moves to keep a roof over my head all while being spat on by all sorts of people and weathering wave after wave of politically motivated anti-intellectualism and it’s 2AM and I’m exhausted from digging a fucking trench to install pipes for the shitty house in the middle of buttfuck nowhere that I’ve had to move to in order to be able to work from home…
And this piece of news made me cry a little. Even though I don’t live in Ireland.
Cause I know how it is to feel like there’s no way out and to watch how everyone consumes art daily like addicts all while saying artists don’t matter and we should be grateful for the “privilege” we have and yelling “get a real job” anytime you complain.
And that’s my piece. Bring on the logical arguments. I’ve laid out my feelings.
Also, UBI for everyone would be fucking amazing. Why we’re not doing that is beyond me. It’s like “they” think that without a “carrot on a stick” everyone will stop working. If I had a penny for everyone who practically can’t think straight because of how worried they are about basic needs I’d probably save those pennies for my own basic needs. Fear is not a good motivator for workers.
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Thankfully the article lists everyone that’s eligible and not eligible.
Not true! I’m definitely not eligible, and I’m not listed anywhere in the article.
I just dont get this thing with “artists”, if you cant get people to buy your art, buy your albuns, buy a ticket to your show then you are not an artist, you are just an entertainer of yourself! If my company cant sell their product will the government give us 1500£ too? its the same thing, if my product is shit i wont sell, period
most people don’t do art to make a living. it’s a fun bonus and it is absolutely OK. Now when you’re a professional commercial artist who does commissions and other stuff - yeah, that’s a problem. However, you need to keep in mind that the infrastructure for culture commodification (making money from art) has been broken since the late 90s. There were short periods when the emergence of new tech made it seem like it is almost possible but the window was always too short to capitalize.
A ton of influential and world renowned artists were very unsuccessful during their life.
So an artists worth is determined by external, financial factors? What?
is determined by results! If you have a song and no one want to ear it are you an artist?
Well, there are plenty of famous artists who only became famous after they died. Contemporary popularity doesn’t guarantee historic/cultural impact.
I’m not aware of the specific requirements of this program, but Iteland also has a case for cultural preservation, particularly with works in the Irish language, which may not have the international appeal necessary to make a good profit but are important for intrinsic reasons to Ireland.
There’s also the case to be made that in order to become a great artist, you must first be a bad artist - and there aren’t that many jobs for internships/apprenticeships in the arts, especially as some of the more “basic” jobs (cheap graphic arts, copywriters, muzak, etc.) are snapped up by AI.
I think there is an interesting discussion to be had about what an artist must have in order to qualify for something like this. I would also be concerned with “antiestablishment” works possibly being excluded.
Inb4 random people drawing a dickbutt a month on some random piece of paper to qualify as “artist” and get free money from the government.
All these good sounding programs sound great in theory, until you find out that the lobbist controlling their actual enactment will make it a lot easier for CEOs to request the funds than actual homeless artists
And that’s why the Basic Income should be Universal.
All these good sounding programs sound great in theory, until you find out that the lobbist controlling their actual enactment will make it a lot easier for CEOs to request the funds than actual homeless artists
No, means testing is so ignorant people switch from:
We should all get this
To
The people I don’t like shouldn’t get this
If people drawing one dick but a month gets this, it’s only so people like you will be turned against UBI.
Shits too important to allow that ignorance to go unaddressed.
Because after it’s explained, you either get back on the side of the people, or make it obvious that you’re just against UBI for reasons other than you said
Artists… yes, because god knows, theres a shortage of those insufferable pricks running around… You ever meet an art student? You will never, in your life, meet a more entitled own fart sniffer.
Surely theres a better, more deserving group of people out there that could make use of this kind of program? Single parents? Kids from low income families, looking to get into higher education? Why, O, fucking why, is it “artists”???
Entitled? Nah, you’re thinking of business majors.
No, Im not. The reputation of art students is well known, and has been for more than 50 years. Case and point, Hitler was a fucking art student.
well you sound like an enjoyable person
I dont “sound” like anything to you. And I actually can be quite fun, unlike art students who have had the reputation of being stuck up cunts for longer than Ive been alive. But sure, attack my character and not the content of the comment. That always make you look real fucking smart, and not at all like a fucking moron trying to get worthless internet points off a heavily downvoted comment…
If every art student has a problem with you, I don’t think the problem is art students
Fucking cringe.
you’re not disproving them tho.
And why should I? Why is my being fun or not have anything to do with other groups in society being more deserving of and offering more tangible evidence of, this being a good thing? Why am I the topic of conversation at all???
You dont have to answer that, we both know why. Because its only ever morons who attack the poster and not the post. The way to go was challenging what I said, not that I said it and that because Im “not fun” I should be ignored.
Honestly, imagine being this fucking butthurt because I said kids from underprivileged/poverty backgrounds would be better for something like this than fucking “artists”. The utter fucking state of the world.
Imagine being this mad about pixels on a screen
Yes… imagine…
Boy lemmy.world is really pulling in some winners these days
